Now Labour would cut by 10 percent too

Hysteria

So the meeja is finally waking up??

Wight Tory

A get out jail card, DC has certainly been dealt a good hand and let the details devil be set free.

John Page

"There is no one who doesn't know the parlous condition of our finances. We have borrowed five times our own GDP. It beggars belief that there are not going to be swingeing cuts and all sorts of alteration to taxes to pay for that. How otherwise are we ever going to plug the hole in our finances? Surely what the Tories are doing is telling the truth - and what you're doing is trying to disguise it?"

If Jon Snow can knock up this formulation, why can't Cameron, Osborne and their cohorts manage it?

Lee Jakeman

Fraser, you're right. It must be frustrating for you to see this issue so misrepresented and lied about. All that you're "guilty" of is quoting the (Labour) government's own figures!

One thing I'd like to ask you, though. Even though you're telling the truth, have you had any stick from Tories who would rather you have kept your mouth shut - or are they glad, in a way, that you've brought the issue out into the open?

Ed

Brown has misread the public mood on this one. "Cuts" is no longer a dirty word. If you want a bit of a litmus test check out the comments on the story in this evening's Standard:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23705988-details/Brown+corners+Cameron+on+Tory+spending+cuts+gaffe/article.do?expand=true#StartComments

If anything the public want the Tories to go further.

If Brown really thinks this tactic will work in 2009 as it did in 2005 and 2001, he's even more bonkers than we thought.

Nicholas

Surprisingly for the BBC (but not for her) Laura Kuenssberg did almost as well on the Six O'Clock News, pointing out the 7% Labour cuts and making the distinction about the ring fencing that GB didn't. I have noticed that her reporting is often a cut above and usually more objective and incisive than Nick Robinson's.

Anand

Let's hope this little spat builds of some MSM momentum and more people delve into the figures. Today could backfire very nastily for Mr Brown.

Jono

Great work, Mr Nelson. Vitally important, too.

Dan

Burnham looked like a complete idiot, and a dishonest one at that. Brown is still fighting the '01 and '05 elections and takes the electorate for complete fools.

James S

Clearly Labour has a two Parliamentary term plan. Scorched earth now, leaving the Conservatives to be the nasty party of Labour’s imagination. Then with a bit of luck the get re-elected in five, or at most ten years. Key to this tactic is to admit no wrong. Admitting wrong would beg the question as to why they are doing nothing about it with almost a year until the election, and even more importantly, the Labour narrative is clearly going to be that things were all OK when they were in government, cuts are a Conservative policy driven by their dislike of the welfare state.

Michael Booth

"Brown crushes bid to force election

Opposition parties have failed by 72 votes to force an early General Election in the wake of the expenses scandal.

Scottish and Welsh nationalists spearheaded the bid to dissolve Parliament, with Tory and Liberal Democrat support.

But the move was scuppered by 340 votes to 268 just two days after Prime Minister Gordon Brown saw off attempts by his own backbenchers to remove him from office".

Who are the 72 numpties who threw Gordon yet another lifeline? Peter Hain said they could not 'turn their backs on the British people'. Oh yes they could. Please. Now.

Simon Stephenson

Fraser, this is a semantic battlefield you are fighting on. Labour has made it so. Health spending WILL grow through the period, IN NOMINAL TERMS. So Brown and Burnham can claim they are being honest, and they are - providing that the definition of honesty is restricted to not telling outright lies.

If you are to make any constructive progress in this, or any other area, you have to make a quantum leap in your tactics so that you are actually attacking their pre-prepared defensive position, and not the one that your conventional thinking has led you to believe is the one they will take.

My recommendation is that what would cause them most consternation would be to get a discussion going about honesty - how it should be defined, and what standard it's reasonable for the public to expect of it's politicians.

Gordon Brown's entire career has been built on the realisation that teenage sophistry is a far more powerful weapon in an adult-adult engagement than it is in a child-adult one. David Cameron is prevented by convention from telling him to grow up, or sending him to his bedroom in disgrace, and Brown knows it. What he doesn't appreciate, of course, is that this adolescent behaviour is not stamped on because it is annoying, but because it is unhelpful to the social negotiations that have to go on in the grown-up world.

seb

More sackings today from the British Council announced. Five hundred. This is part of the little trickle in the mud that precedes the collapse of the entire dyke. Even Comrade Snow knows what's going to happen and is no longer willing to lie for his Party. Soon, even halfwits will notice the deluge that was supposed not to have started until Cameron was in Downing Street.

Hawkeye

Nice to see that one of broadcasters actually "gets it". I expect to see more and more of them "getting it" as they realise that Labour will be out and the Tories will be in after the next election.

It is always important to make sure that you toady to those who will be your masters after the election.

chris

Yes, Fraser, my ears popped when I heard Burnham say this.
As I keep saying in my comments on this blog, the media must now step up their examination of Labour lies, immediately they come out.
This deceit must now stop, and let us have a proper debate about how debt will be repayed, by when, and how the fiscal books can move towards balance.
Brown must understand that he can't carry on with the lying game.

Fraser Nelson

Simon Stephenson, one "honesty" tactic is to have a cross party panel adjudicating if statistics are used misleadingly or not. Something tells be Brown wontsign up to it, tho...

J H Holloway

I see that the National Institute for Economic and Social Research is calling an end to the recession.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/10/uk-industrial-production-recession

Brown's masterplan is starting to roll out. While, this upturn in industrial output is more of a gentle re-stocking than an anticipation of a boom, Labour is calculating that by next June the green shoots will be well and truly established and he can play the great Helmsman during the election campaign.

Trouble is, the huge debts Brown has left behind (and the decimated pensions and savings income) have become mainstream chat up and down the country.

But it's clear, as one senior Labour figure said the other day, Brown is selling the Spring 2010 recovery to Labour MPs as their only hope.

Andy

Fraser, I think you've got this one wrong.

Burnham says that:
"I am committing to you that this budget remains and I am also committing to you, in the way that the Prime Minister has, that we will continue to maintain growth in health spending in the following period."

Growth in health spending does not equal real terms growth in health spending.

mart

Fraser,

Having just watched it on the Channel 4 website, I thought the interview contained some good lines from Mr Snow, but was not especially robust.

Every time Mr Snow asked about Labour's numbers, the Health Secretary simply said he disagreed and immediately returned to making points about Conservative policy.

Whenever he did that, it would have been quite appropriate for an interviewer to interrupt and insist on an answer to the points about Labour policy.

Anyhow, I would like to add my congratulations to those already given. I expect your posts on this subject - and your questions to the PM - have helped this story to make it up the agenda.

Jeremy

"There is no one who doesn't know the parlous condition of our finances. We have borrowed five times our own GDP. It beggars belief that there are not going to be swingeing cuts and all sorts of alteration to taxes to pay for that. How otherwise are we ever going to plug the hole in our finances? Surely what the Tories are doing is telling the truth - and what you're doing is trying to disguise it?"

And I had Jon Snow marked down as a well-placed propagandist for the Left - one who saved his sneers (and any tough questioning) for the Tories. Neverthless, this little foray into economic sanity deserves to be noted. Perhaps - even this late in the day - he may do enough to be remembered as a great journalist and not just a well-heeled Labour stooge.

Chris

The lady on the BBC Six o'Clock News could hardly conceal her scorn when she observed that in the nominal terms Brown was using, spending hasn't been cut since 1947. This is going our way!

lawrence greek

Lansley has actually done the Tories, and everyone else, a favour judging by the way this has developed. Both BBC (shock!) and C4 reported Fraser's and the IFS' 7% Labour cuts. The debate is running, people are aware of Brown's lies. How long can he keep it up? Judging by tonight, the media don't look like they will let Labour get away with 'investment versus cuts' for the next year. Well done Fraser.

RMH

Muggy Nulabour monkeys.

On the Today show, he said waiting lists are all but eradicated. LIAR LIAR.

Tiberius

Will we ever know whether today's revelations would have happened in the way that they have, if Fraser hadn't done so much work on the IFS figures?

Regardless, Fraser, you deserve congratulations for being the spearhesd that brought this matter into the public domain.

And judging by the reports of how the BBC and Jon Snow have approached the issue this evening, it looks as if the Tories have removed the lid from their carefully guarded dry powder at just the right time.

Julianlzb87

Malik busted, again, in the DT.
Time for another reshuffle.

Simon Stephenson

Fraser

Thanks for coming back on the honesty issue.

Isn't this adjudication something that could be vested in the Speaker's office? Wouldn't it be particularly attractive if the Speaker was also introduced the House after a national election? So the rules by which the Commons was governed were set by a Speaker elected independently of the House. A National Arbiter, so to speak. He'd obviously have to be someone of ability, but he wouldn't need to be a Parliamentarian.

It could also be part of the Speaker's remit to vet the questions, as well as the answers. There's no doubt that the more questioners seek to load the message into the question, the more the answers will be loaded with the alternative message. Maybe we'd do well to think about the old adage "Ask me a straight question, and I'll give you a straight answer".

Would either of the main parties even contemplate something like this, or would they jointly conclude that it would make government unworkable, or at least, less efficient than it is now?

Fat Bob

Just somthing i noticed at pmqs at his response to mark harper was that he said "...the conservative party will be the party that fights for cuts in services OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS.." is that a clue that he is going to go for an election late this year, thus heading off another round of leadership speculation in the autumn?

Derek

The principle of both the Conservatives and the other formerly major party on the question of the necessity for future public spending cuts is the same: pull the wool over the people's eyes or they will see what we are really doing and vote against us. In essence, this is a continuation of the expenses scandal by other means. Vote out all politicians who refuse to speak the truth when they speak publicly. In the meantime, we have to counter the top down stream of information which only reinforces the attempt of the politicians to manipulate the people. The blogosphere is already contributing greatly to this. I sense that the contribution could be reinforced if constituencies were to build horizontal connections with neighbouring constituencies, o that those who read the better informed and thoughtful blogs can disseminate and discuss the arguments and conclusions of those bloggers. In the same way, therefore, as caterpillars of the commonwealth such as Loed Mandelson create ways to circumvent and control the House of Commons, so the electorate must build ways to circumvent the caterpillars.

Derek

Incidentally, I agree with Mr. Nelson's proposal at 9:13pm that a cross party panel adjudicate whether statistics have been used misleadingly - and with his estimate of the likely fate of such a proposal. That estimate illuminates the "top down" problem of holding politicians to the truth. This therefore would better be the subject of cross party contacts at the constituency level. If the top tried to prevent cross-party constituency panels of this kind, the interested party members should structure their own blog where their anonymity could be hidden from the party police. The truth would then begin to flow in a reverse direction to the lies. If successful on a single issue such as budget projections, the activity could be slowly widened to build a horizontal democratic structure to counter the "democratic centralism" under which we presently operate. All power to the people's soviets?

Fergus Pickering

Snow's Ok and so is Channel 4 News. They are lefties it is true ( journos tend to be lefties by their very nature) but they are JOURNALISTS. The Beeb is full of stooges who are far too well paid for their own, or anybody else's good. Shut the buggers down, say I. Cameron won't, but he will make life more difficult fot them.

Fraser Nelson

Andy, if you look at inflation forecasts for that period it's so low that they wouldn't be able to play the nominal v real terms game.

Michael

Simon Stephenson has put his finger on the problem with Gordon Brown. Sometime in his teens his personality was fixed. So now we are all facing up to a teenage know-it-all. Arguments with people like that are futile. You can see that every PMQ.

Ken

Vindication Mr Nelson, its getting traction. Excellent.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1192077/Senior-Tory-lets-slip-plan-cut-public-spending-10.html

donald fraser

Before elections loom, wide and ranging discussions are abroad
New investment schemes, Internet for all or Web 2.0 awards.
Yet as the moment for the votes approaches,
The power of broadcast media simply poaches.

Stamp out the complex, and nothing wiser or bolder,
Huckster pollsters instruct broadcast media controller.
Jettison all party innovative ideas and ridiculous pies in the sky
Else you won’t be transmitted at the peak viewing time.

Only party policy on health and education we want to hear,
Our surveys done just yesterday are only to clear.
General public has the keenest attention for those
Anything else broadcast would merely oppose.

Interest of voters gathered in front of our screens to peruse,
Airing of your wares upon which you will win or lose.
So the 10% fallacy begins
And then it boils down to trust to deliver upon election wins.

10% less or 10% more is all we can expect to hear.
As politicians start to adhere to time controllers who fear
Anything else might awkwardly betray,
Our viewing public’s known ability to swing on the great day.

However after victory’s had it’s all up in the air,
Because only the pedantist can see and thus truly care
About bureaucrats who use up billions with every government measure.

But still we will have this 10% debate
And the issue of trust will seal the fate,
Of those politicos who battle to win this game.
The horror of broadcast media and all its shame,

To perpetuate the fallacy of the 10% debate,
To fill our screens with nightly, meaningless irate
Members of the public from the teaching or nursing professions,
Reveal in-department inefficiencies by expose of their same confession.

Fuelling the 10% tiger to be spent in this way or that
Which in the end is simple a red herring inside a magician’s hat.
If only we had a unified blogging and narrowcasting platform,
To stop this rot and disingenuous debate to which all parties conform.

To free politicians and electorate from peak time media obsession,
Of time slot controllers telling us at each and every election
The public needs to understand your views on health and education.
And nothing else will settle the enquiring minds of the attentive nation!
Of course like bread and butter we need these two base measures
But it perverts proper policy debate for controller’s “survey said” pleasure.
Anyway it’s commonplace to spend an extra 20% and blame inclement weather.

strapworld

Fraser, I hope you watched Denham on Newsnight last evening.

Apart from the fact that Essler proved useless, again, as a chairman. Denham's performance needs a far wider audience.

Bullying and hectoring and lying.

The Tories have stumbled on HONEST politics, they should keep it up.

Brown has, yet again, shown he cannot read the political runes and has lost the argument. Everyone with a semblence of a brain realises that there HAS to be cuts.

It is, though, wrong to say the NHS should not face cuts. There is AMPLE room within that organisation. A requirement to prune the executives by 25% would save a large fortune.

But we cannot cut back on the over stretched military- especially when they are fighting, and dying, for us!

having said that. Lansley is a liability, Firstly he is an expenses fiddler! secondly he cannot stop engaging mouth before engaging brain!

Frederick James

Simon Stephenson (2045 post - brilliant btw): is there not also, though, a semantic question about what constitutes a lie? Surely to lie is to use information in such a way as intentionally to cause the hearer to believe something that is false; and surely Brown does this all the time and did so again at PMQs yesterday.

Perhaps Cameron should wait for a really clear-cut example, press the nuclear button and straightforwardly accuse Brown of lying. "He has just lied to the country; and no, Mr Speaker, I will not withdraw."

When was the Leader of the Opposition last thrown out of the Commons? If it happened in the near future, the public would see a dishonest Prime Minister being defended by a disgraced Speaker and would draw the right conclusions. Brown's mendacity in Parliament is a constitutional outrage, so maybe the precipitation of such a constitutional crisis is warranted. What use is cleaning up expenses if we cannot clean up the Brownies?

oldtimer

Keep on prodding at this issue. It is good news that it is now in the open. It now needs to be the narrative to replace MPs expenses. Those journalists that are capable of working out that 2 + 2 = 4 will understand the point you are making.

As for relying on MPs to sort out the statistics (as suggested in earlier comments) forget it. These are the very same people who made a mess of their own expenses. I prefer to rely on someone independent - the Institute of Fiscal Studies are the people to carry on their sterling service for the rest of us.

Tiberius

The Tories' position on education and health, the two policy areas that Labour would have us believe are the equivalent to ignorance and want, is quite good.

The radical reform of schools takes away any effective line of fire Labour may try, and the policy on health keeps the potentially most raw charge on cuts in the background.

If the health service is going to be "Goved", it will probably have to be during a second Cameron term.

donald fraser

Sorry, the title of the above poem was "10% fallacy".

Jonathan Cook

Fraser,

Thanks for being dogged on this issue.

Gordon's "Brownies" make my blood boil. Why he has to treat us like fools time and time again I don't know.

I hope Brown's reply to you at the recent press conference come back and burn him very, very badly.

Simon Stephenson

Frederick James : 9.13am

Thanks for your comment, and kind words.

You ask:-

"Surely to lie is to use information in such a way as intentionally to cause the hearer to believe something that is false"

This is the crux of the problem, isn't it? By this definition, all non-tombstone commercial advertising is lying. But (unfortunately) society has accepted advertising as a good, so we have had to tighten the definition of lying to exclude misrepresentation.

But, as they say, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and if it's OK for commerce and trade to prosper through telling porkies, then it's OK for anyone else to do so - including politicians.

The question we might ask ourselves is whether the presence in neurotypicals of an ability to deceive, in contrast to autistics where this ability is largely lacking, makes it fair to assert that deception is a higher form of human behaviour than honesty. Or would it be better to see a propensity to deceive as a human failing from which autistics are fortunate (or unfortunate?) not to suffer?

Ivy Eileen

As posted above, let's hope the message is getting through and this continuing lie will be stamped on.

BUT - "Reply: "As far as Andy Burnham is concerned, yes." So there we have it: a new Labour budget commitment is born."

No, we don't "have it". This weasel wording allows Downing Street to disown Burnham at a future date if it suits their purposes. Remember, with Brown, words are cheap and can be dispensed like money. You have said so yourself, when you pointed out his Brownie in his post-G20 message about "making available" billions of financial aid.

Adam

Amongst the reshuffle and constitutional innovations (Mandy's world) one very important development has been missed: Fraser Nelson has become the First Lord of the Treasury with Robert Chote as his deputy. I really welcome this change. Congrats to my Lord er... Nelson. Hey! Good title too. :)